If you’ve been watching the webcam today then you’ve probably noticed that the chicks seem to be getting stronger by the minute. And it’s little wonder; 5R brought a very large bream to the nest at lunchtime and Mum has been feeding them at regular intervals since. At this very early stage, it doesn’t take much fish to fill the chicks up and so each feeding session rarely lasts more than a few minutes. Here’s a clip from earlier this afternoon.

As the video shows, we’re still waiting for the third chick to hatch. It shouldn’t be too much longer…earlier this afternoon, we noticed that a hole had apeared in the egg. If you have a close look at the video below, you can just about see the hole on the right hand side.

By 6pm the hole had got slightly bigger and we could see the chick’s egg tooth chipping away at the egg shell. This all means that by first light tomorrow there should be three chicks in the nest. Make sure you set your alarms for 6am and check the webcam as soon as it comes on!

Here’s a video of all of the family on the nest, with the unhatched chick chipping away at the shell.